How I keep my backpack organized

by Catherine Bodry on

I’ve become such a smug packer. On my last trip, I packed for three states, two countries, and three climates, which varyied from Alaska winter to springtime Mexico, and I would proudly show off display my bag (which I carried on each flight) to anyone who was (or wasn’t) interested.

What’s ironic is that I’m a total mess – I’m famously disorganized, and the contents of my bag will spew over the floor and bed of my hotel room in a colorful vomit until it’s time to move on. So, in order to contain my sloppy piles, I’ve implemented a packing strategy that has changed my travel life. Well, it’s less of a strategy and more of a product: Eagle Creek’s packing cubes. (Full disclosure – I receive a pro-purchase deal on Eagle Creek products, but I was buying packing cubes long before that privilege.)

For my round-the-world trip, I used a Marmot Diva backpack, which is thin and deep, and only has a top opening. With the packing cubes, I could color-coordinate (pants in the yellow cube, shirts in the blue one) and grab exactly what I needed rather than dig blindly through the black cavern of the backpack. Though the pack is cylindrical and the cubes are square, I could use the empty space along the sides of the cubes for stuffing dirty clothes, books, and shoes.I found that the half-cube size works better for me than the full size. The full one is so big that it ends up becoming just as disorganized as my pack would be without one, unless I’m taking bulky winter gear. The half cube is perfect for my lighter clothes: I simply roll everything up into tubes and line them up inside. I use a long tube cube for my underwear and one or two pairs of socks. Once I’m home, I’ll throw all my travel accessories (pack towel, hand sanitizer, headlamp, etc) into a cube or two and keep it in a drawer, where it’s all in one place.

I would have included a picture of my own stellar packing job, except that I’ve been home a month now and my stuff is currently spilling out of my cubes and pack on my bedroom floor….

Eagle Creek’s Customer Service is Awesome!

by Justin Glow on

My girlfriend has an Eagle Creek Voyage 65L, and she put me to the task of finding a suitable rain cover for the backpack for an upcoming trip. No problem, I thought; I headed to Eagle Creek’s website to see if they have a cover specifically for her pack, but I couldn’t find one. So I sent an email to customer service asking if they had a rain cover that I might have missed. Here’s the response a got:

Thank you for your email. We do make a pack called the Explorer which does come with a rain cover; however, we do not make a rain cover that is marketed by itself. We offer the rain cover from the Explorer as a spare part if you would like to purchase it. It should work for the Voyage since it is similar in size to the Explorer; however, the bags are shaped a little differently so it most likely will not be a perfect fit. If you would like to purchase one of the rain covers as a spare part, please call us at 1-800-874-1048 and select option two to speak with the warranty department; they handle spare part requests and can arrange sending one to you.

There we go. Not only did I get an actual human responding to my email (instead of an automated or pre-written, generic response), they were extremely helpful. But the goodness doesn’t end there. The response continues:

You might also check with a local outdoor retailer. Many other outdoor companies do manufacture rain covers and, since they are usually designed to fit a wide variety of bags, you should be able to find one that works with the Voyage. One other cheaper suggestion that I received from a colleague is that instead of buying a rain cover you could even put items that you would not want to get wet into plastic bags. For smaller items that you would put into the outer pockets you could first put them into zip lock bags before placing them into the pockets; and you could put a large trash bag into the main compartment and then load all of your items into it. Please let me know if you need any further assistance.

You really can’t ask for more than that. Thanks, Eagle Creek.